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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25566793">A Late Night Snack</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetcarolanne/pseuds/sweetcarolanne'>sweetcarolanne</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Children, Cryptozoology, Family, Food, Gen, New Zealand, Sasquatch</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 01:59:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>665</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25566793</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetcarolanne/pseuds/sweetcarolanne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Helen advises her new neighbours on how to keep their gardens and livestock safe - and has a few special gifts for the friends no one else gets to see...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Fandom Giftbox 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Late Night Snack</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stefanyeah/gifts">Stefanyeah</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is another of my little stories about my take on NZ's "Moehau man" - a legendary creature similar to Bigfoot, although the ones in my story are less ferocious than they are in some Maori legends.  The word is roughly pronounced "Mo-eh-ho." The Coromandel is a region in NZ's North Island where these creatures have, according to legend, been said to live.</p><p>"Chook" is a NZ/Australian slang word for chicken.</p><p>Many thanks to my anonymous beta.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When new neighbours moved onto the lifestyle block next to Helen’s own rural Coromandel property, she didn’t say anything about the others living nearby at first. If she had mentioned what was out there in the bush, the young couple would have called her insane and that would have been the end of a promising friendship. Helen really liked Matt and Claire, and she didn’t want them thinking ill of her or telling everyone they knew that she was a crazy old bat.</p><p>The subject came up, though,  when Helen visited with an offering of freshly baked scones and home-made blackberry jam.</p><p>“No, we never saw who did this,” Claire said, shaking her head at the sad state of the fruit trees as they all stood outside in front of the devastation. “But it’s obviously people, not animals. I reckon it’s kids – there’s little footprints all over the garden.”</p><p>Helen looked at the prints and knew immediately whose they were. Bonnie and Clyde had given Big Mama the slip and helped themselves to someone else’s goodies, yet again.</p><p>She took a deep breath and faced Matt and Claire.</p><p>“This is going to sound weird, but please just trust me on this. I’ve lived around here all my life and I know how to handle this sort of thing. What I’d suggest doing is leaving a couple of buckets of fruit and veg out at night and you shouldn’t have any more trouble. And make sure your chooks are all locked up safe and tight when it gets dark, too.”</p><p>Later that evening, Helen carried two large plastic pails of apples, lettuces and some nice ripe tomatoes and placed them next to a thickly wooded area a short way past her house. She didn’t have to wait long. Two fuzzy little scamps, their eyes glowing in the moonlight and their red-gold fur unkempt from romping on the ground and climbing trees, dashed out and made a beeline for the sweet, crunchy apples. Helen chuckled at the twins’ eagerness.</p><p>“The gruesome twosome, Bonnie and Clyde,” she murmured, although they weren’t really gruesome, just cute and a little silly. “Typical kids – going after the sweets when they should be eating their greens first!” She wondered if their mother would come and get a fix of her favourite food.</p><p>Heavy footsteps sounded in the bush, and Big Mama was standing in front of Helen before she even had time to think.</p><p>The twins’ mother was just over seven feet tall, with red fur of a darker shade than her children’s. Her golden eyes shone like the full moon and revealed a keen intelligence behind them. With long, graceful fingers that reminded Helen of the orangutans she’d seen on a visit to Auckland Zoo some years back, she took a tomato from one of the pails and popped it into her mouth whole, uttering a soft, contented hum as she did so.</p><p>“You like that, Big Mama? Good. There’s plenty more where that came from.”</p><p>Helen had known that the Moehau people were real since she was a child, at first glimpsing vague shadows amongst the trees and hearing wood-knocks late at night, then coming to know these creatures a little better and building trust with gifts and patience. Only the mother and her children ever came out when Helen was around though – the adult male, Big Daddy, preferred to remain aloof, foraging or hunting for his own food in the forest. Helen was rather glad of that, because he could be very aggressive, and he stank to high heaven.</p><p>It’s a good thing the legends of them eating humans are just that – legends, Helen thought. Their appetites were voracious, but they ate mostly vegetation or birds, including the occasional chicken if they could grab one.</p><p>“Looks like you’re eating for two there,” Helen said, nodding at Big Mama’s swelling belly. Big Mama kept making her gentle humming sound and seemed to almost smile as she reached for another tomato.</p>
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